Rich v. poor: The lives we can expect from our income

Andre Picard

Published on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 7:40PM ESTLast updated on Friday, Nov. 27, 2009 2:20AM EST

Life expectancy in Canada rivals that of almost any country in the world. A girl born today can expect to live, on average, to 82 and a boy to a more modest 76.9, according to Statistics Canada.

But life expectancy is a crude measure that tells a superficial story, so there have been many attempts to drill down into the data.

There are, for example, wide regional variations. In Canada, there is a West-to-East-to-North health gradient: Those who are healthiest and live longest are on the Pacific Coast, and the numbers get gradually worse as you move across the nation to the Atlantic region. Then, when you look to the North, the numbers take a precipitous drop. In the territories, life expectancy is similar to that in low- and middle-income countries.

Just as there are regional variations, there are differences across the lifespan. Those who die early tend to skew data on average life expectancy.

This has given rise to the popular measure of life expectancy at 65. On her 65th birthday, a Canadian woman can expect to live 21 more years on average, and a man almost 18./.../